


young gods

by andnowforyaya



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Biting, Dating violence, Drugs, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Rough Sex, Trauma, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:23:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8152193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: Kihyun sets his sights on Hoseok. Hook, line, and sink him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so the last kiho i wrote was fluffy. my brain supplied a 180. if there's anything else that should be tagged, please let me know.

 

 _If there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes_  
_I know you wanna go to heaven, but you're human tonight_

young gods, halsey

.

The boy has grey eyes tonight, irises thin around blown pupils, his hair stark white and skin pale. Sometimes his eyes are his natural honey-brown, and sometimes they are blue. He looks like a ghost, Kihyun thinks. Flitting from person to person, swaying to the music pounding through the house in a storm of his own creation. Glowing in a sea of bodies thrown in shadow from the low lighting throughout the house.

Kihyun can't take his eyes off of him, hasn't been able to since the ghost first started showing up at their parties two weekends ago like something the snow had blown in. Fresh blood in a bloodless room. Kihyun lounges at the balcony railing overlooking the living room like he always does towards the end of the evening, carefully removed from the den of debauchery below, an overseer.

His cup is empty, the residue of alcohol sticky at the edges and around his fingers. He licks them and turns to go into his friend’s bedroom, the boy who’s hosting this party. Three steps from the edge of the balcony and straight through the door. The lights are off, but Hyungwon has strung up strand after strand of white Christmas lights on his walls and his ceiling, and everything is pricked by the light.

“I’m going back downstairs,” Kihyun says to the mostly apathetic room. Hyungwon, on his bed and rolling on a cocktail of molly and over-the-counter pills and alcohol, waves him off and resumes kissing the girl in his bed.

Minhyuk is spread-eagle on the floor, eyes hooded, probably counting the lights strung up on the ceiling. “I’ll come with you,” Minhyuk says, though he makes no attempts at moving. His hair is bright like the boy’s downstairs, spread around him like a crushed halo.

“Don’t bother,” Kihyun returns, and the other boy shrugs.

.

He moves down the stairs slowly, teeth glinting in the low light when the steps clear for him, when people seem to know by instinct to get out of his way. Sometimes Kihyun feels like a razor, sharp-edged and dangerous. Don’t touch me, he thinks, you’ll bleed.

Music is a strange thing. It grabs Kihyun by each vertebrae and tugs. At the bottom of the steps, it is no longer a muted throbbing that lives in the walls, but something alive and sinuous. Kihyun can feel the beat pulse through his chest, and it _hurts_. A strange thing, also, to be hurt by sound. He wades through the crowd -- all Hyungwon’s friends, models and model-wannabe’s, mostly familiar faces -- and stops behind the boy.

He glows so bright it hurts to look at him. Kihyun says, “Want one?” and pulls at the boy’s bare shoulder.

The other turns around slowly, and smiles when he looks into Kihyun’s open palm, at what’s inside. His smile is perfect, Kihyun thinks. He wants to shatter his teeth. “What is it?” the boy asks, and his voice is like smooth velvet.

“Do you care?” Kihyun responds, tilting his head to the side. His dark hair falls into his face and the other boy brushes it back almost tenderly. They are a moment of stillness in a pulsing, moving crowd. The focal point around which a world could spin. It’s the drugs, Kihyun knows, but he still feels limitless.

“No, I guess I don’t care,” the other boy says, and suddenly Kihyun sees how sharp his teeth are.

He smiles back, puts the tab on his tongue and opens his mouth for the other boy to kiss it out of him.

.

His name is Hoseok. Kihyun learns it that night when he’s clawing his nails into Hoseok’s back. He wants to scratch him open and crawl inside.

.

Kihyun is eight and his family is at the beach. He remembers not liking the sand and how it stings his eyes and gets buried in the beds of his fingernails; when he picks at them he only digs the sand in deeper, until one fingertip is bleeding. His mother in a bikini and coverslip pinches his side and Kihyun flinches.

“Stop that,” she says. “Stop that, baby.” She pinches him again, hard, nail digging into his skin at his hip. His father doesn’t look from where he is reading under the big beach umbrella. Kihyun stops, but his fingertip doesn’t stop bleeding, and now his side is sore.

Later, he swims out into the ocean, and the salt water makes him light and buoyant. He feels like air.

.

After winter break, Hoseok transfers to their college. They are in the same business major, same year, almost the exact same classes. It’s weird that Kihyun never gets bored of Hoseok’s face, that they sit together almost every day. Kihyun has never been good at keeping and making friends.

The transition for Hoseok is, however, not smooth. Professors catch him smoking in the bathroom or in the library. They confiscate his water bottle in class because he sometimes stores vodka in it. They assign him a counselor -- Kihyun’s counselor -- and Hoseok talks circles around him. Sometimes Kihyun and Hoseok sit in the waiting room for the counselor’s office together, wondering what each other’s biggest secrets are. Sometimes, they skip the waiting room and escape to the stacks to fuck.

They are only caught once.

.

“Kihyun,” Hyungwon says from the other end of the line, his voice slightly distant. “Party this weekend. Bring people.”

“You know all the people I know,” Kihyun says, both to butter Hyungwon up and remind him how sociable he is, and to worm his way out of needing to extend the effort to invite his friends. All his friends are Hyungwon’s friends, anyway. Well, mostly all of them.

“What about Hoseok?” Hyungwon asks, and Kihyun grimaces into his phone.

“He’ll show up even if I don’t invite him.”

“I’m not the party you stumble into,” Hyungwon explains in the way Kihyun imagines he must talk to his manager. “I’m the party you never leave.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Kihyun says.

“Invite him.”

Hyungwon hangs up. Kihyun texts Hoseok about the party, unsure why his fingers keep tripping up on the words.

.

Kihyun is ten and his father is dead. His mother cuts out the newspaper clipping about the passing and puts it on their coffee table in the living room, and Kihyun is old enough to read it and understand. Drunk driving and dead on arrival. There had been another woman in the car with him.

His mother languishes on the couch. He goes hungry for a week at home before finally stealing her credit card and buying as many packages of ramyun and boxes of microwaveable foods he can fit into one hand basket. They have only one visitor who comes in person, who doesn’t just send flowers and cards, and it’s his father’s partner at the firm, who passes over a lot of paperwork explaining the trust Kihyun’s father has left in his son’s name, the position waiting for him when he graduates from college.

 _The house for Mom,_ the man says with a nasty smile. _But nothing else._ His mother chases him out of the house with an empty wine bottle.

“You’re going to be just like him when you grow up,” his mother tells him when he gets her back on the couch. She’s a frail but vicious thing, and her nails are long. He’ll never forget her eyes then, bloodshot and wide but unseeing, like nothing was behind them. She pinches his wrist and draws blood. “Aren’t you?”

“No,” Kihyun says, desperate, tears pricking his eyes. “Mom, it’s me.”

His mother releases him, throws his wrist away from herself, and Kihyun falls to the ground, crying and cradling his arm. “Liar,” she spits.

.

Kihyun has scars in the shape of tiny moons at his wrists and hips, silver and faded, barely noticeable in most lights. Sometimes it feels like there’s something there, prickling under his skin and waiting to get out. Hoseok takes his hand on the roof deck of Hyungwon’s apartment and says, “They’re like little teeth,” tracing his thumb over the scars there. “Did you have a dog?”

“No,” Kihyun says, “just a mother.”

Kihyun closes his eyes as the molly he took just a moment ago works through him. Hoseok's hand is so warm, his skin like feathers. Inside and below, the party is going strong. It had crowded quickly, and once Hyungwon found someone he wanted to stay with for the night Kihyun didn't see the point of hanging around. Up here, it's just them and the stars, the cold whipping around them, snow frozen as hard as ice in piles in the the corners.

Hoseok remembered to fetch his coat, so they stand under it together, huddled close, Hoseok's breath fanning over Kihyun's cheek. Hoseok lifts his shirt at the hem, and Kihyun has to bend his spine at an odd angle to see the scar over his ribs, clean and sharp, about the span of a handwidth. Kihyun touches it and watches Hoseok's skin jump, watches it pebble with goose flesh in the cold air.

“My dad,” Hoseok explains. “Huge asshole.”

Kihyun doesn't say anything. He's never one to compare battle scars and holds people who do in contempt. Everyone hurts, he thinks. But he can tell Hoseok wasn’t trying to point out a bigger scar, just something they had in common.

They can still feel the music pulsing underneath them. Occasionally, a party-reveler decides they want to try to brave the cold, and a door opens and the music and loud conversations filter out to greet them, only to be shut away again soon after when the reveler decides it's too cold. They stand together until Kihyun's nose feels frozen and his teeth are chattering.

“What are we doing here, Ki?” Hoseok asks him, voice soft. His arm around Kihyun's middle. The nickname makes him feel fuzzy on the inside, and a little uncertain.

“What do you mean? It's a party.”

“You don't even like any of these people.”

“Hyungwon is alright,” Kihyun says, shrugging. “And Minhyuk.”

Hoseok laughs, bright and echoing. It drowns out the music. It drowns out everything Kihyun is feeling and fills up all the empty spaces inside of him again.

Kihyun says, “I guess you're alright, too,” and Hoseok smiles, and Hoseok kisses him.

.

Hoseok's apartment is smaller than Kihyun's, but more obviously lived in, even though he only moved in about a month ago. It's a studio with an open layout, and it's _cozy_. Kihyun wrinkles his nose at the scent that wafts towards him as soon as Hoseok closes the door -- ramyun and the spicy, woodsy cologne Hoseok uses, the hint of lemon from a room recently cleaned.

“It's nice,” Kihyun says, eyeing the pile of laundry on the floor by Hoseok's huge bed. The space between Hoseok's bed and the island in the kitchen is filled by a couch, coffee table, and entertainment center.

“It's okay,” Hoseok hums. “You don't have to lie.”

Kihyun turns to him, lips pursed, but Hoseok is already putting his shoes and coat away and twirling past the kitchen to throw himself onto the couch. His shirt rides up, and he doesn't pull it down.

“I'm not lying,” Kihyun says, joining him at a much slower pace. Everything is a little wobbly from the alcohol, a little fuzzy around the edges.

“Whatever you say, Ki.”

They kiss. Hoseok’s fingertips are cold and hard when he grabs Kihyun’s hips and pulls him back onto the couch, but his mouth is oh-so-soft, and he tastes like bright citrus from the drinks he had before. The air is chilled but Kihyun can’t feel anything but Hoseok underneath him when they shed their clothing and their bodies slide together, dry and fever-hot. Kihyun’s hand brushes over Hoseok’s scar. It’s funny -- he’d noticed it before but now he feels drawn to it. He traces his fingers up and down the line before kissing the very silver tip.

“Was your dad always an asshole?” Kihyun asks, as Hoseok is pulling a small bottle of lube from the drawers of the coffee table.

Hoseok makes a disgusted face and lies back. “Really, Ki,” he says. “Now?”

Kihyun waits expectantly, eyes focused on Hoseok’s. Pushing himself back on Hoseok’s hips millimeter by millimeter. Finally, Hoseok sighs and says, “No. Just when he drank. Yours?”

Kihyun shrugs. Pushes back until he can feel Hoseok straining against the cleft of his ass. “Do you really want to talk about this now?” he asks, and Hoseok bites his lip and shakes his head, a shadow of a smile on his lips.

“You’re such a dick,” he says.

Kihyun smiles his razor-smile. The smile that makes people move away from him on the steps. Hoseok just grins back.

.

In the morning, everything is grey and soft: the light streaming in through the windows by the bed, the walls, the tiny frown on Hoseok’s sleeping face. It’s crowded on the couch and he’s not sure why they didn’t just relocate to the bed, but he’s mostly lying on top of Hoseok, chest to chest, their bare legs tangled together, so it isn’t that bad. Kihyun presses the pad of his finger to the seam of Hoseok’s lips and watches the flesh give, watches the dimple form around his finger. The tenderness is unbearable.

Kihyun kisses him and bites him awake. Hoseok yelps and sits up, nearly jostling Kihyun off the couch, a bead of blood welling on his bottom lip.

“What the hell?” he murmurs, shocked out of sleep. Hoseok presses his finger against his own lip this time, and sees blood on his fingertip when he pulls away. “What the hell?” he repeats, looking to Kihyun for answers.

But Kihyun has none. Just an overwhelming desire to kiss the blood from Hoseok’s lips. He leans forward and Hoseok has stopped breathing, the sun streaming in through the windows behind him, throwing his face into shadow. Kihyun kisses him and tastes sweet copper, presses against him and breathes him in. “Do it back,” he whispers against Hoseok’s lips.

Hoseok is tentative at first. Kihyun can tell he doesn’t want to hurt him, so he urges him on with his lips and with his hips, with little whispered praises until Hoseok is pliant and wiling, would do anything for a little taste of him. When Hoseok pushes inside of him, Kihyun keens and writhes, Hoseok’s hand around his neck, his teeth sunk into his shoulder. Kihyun scratches up Hoseok’s side and Hoseok does the same to him, the pain a heady, familiar spike of heat.

Hoseok leaves moon-shaped bruises on Kihyun’s hips and shoulders, on the insides of his thighs, fucks Kihyun until he’s shaking with his release and all the way through it, spills inside of him hot and wet.

Kihyun is limp after, exhausted, and protests when Hoseok pulls him off the couch to get cleaned up. In his reflection in the bathroom mirror, though, he lingers and traces over the marks on his shoulders and chest. He can see how Hoseok ruined him, and smiles a tiny smile.

.


	2. Chapter 2

_ I only love it when you touch me, not feel me _ _  
_ _ When I'm fucked up, that's the real me _

the hills, the weeknd

.

Kihyun is fourteen and his mother has sent him off to boarding school with funds left to him by his dead father. Sometimes he visits over the holidays, but as the years pass he spends less and less time at home. Whenever he does go home, his mother tells him he's growing up to be more and more like her late husband. She pinches his cheek and leaves it red.

School isn’t bad, just boring. He’s naturally good at it, which makes suffering through it worse. He meets Hyungwon and Minhyuk the first year, and Changkyun the next. 

Changkyun tells him he has pretty eyes, that his scars remind him of constellations. It's a stupid, naive thing to say, but Kihyun allows it. Changkyun's father is a professor at the school -- Professor Lim -- and his family has a house on campus, but Changkyun stays in the dorms. He has a single, and the keys to the gate around the perimeter of campus are hidden under his bed.

“Dad gives me a lot of freedom,” Changkyun tells Kihyun one day, as they’re stealing Professor Lim’s sleek black Audi to take it for a ride, Hyungwon and Minhyuk in the backseat. “He says you have to make mistakes to grow up.”

They make it out onto the highway, headed toward Seoul. It’s a short drive, and Hyungwon and Minhyuk spend most of it staring into their reflections in the curved glass of the windows making sure the eyeliner over their eyes is still tapered to a deadly point. Kihyun fiddles with the radio, switching stations halfway through songs, until Changkyun covers his hand over the dial and moves it away.

“You’re giving me a headache,” he says. 

Kihyun frowns but doesn’t apologize. Changkyun turns the radio to some pop station playing a dance song and turns it up until it’s pounding in their ears. Rolls down the windows even though Hyungwon is protesting in the back and covering his hair. Changkyun smiles, his eyes dark and mischievous. Kihyun wonders how many times he’s stolen his father’s car before this. He drives like a veteran on the roads and not like the fifteen-year-old that he is.

“What if you keep making the same mistake, over and over again?” Kihyun yells over the music and the wind, hair whipping across his face.

“I think,” Changkyun yells back with a sharp grin on his face, “that’s just called insanity.”

.

“Do you want to go to the movies?” Hoseok asks him the next day, as Kihyun is slipping back into his jeans after a shower. Water drips from his hair onto his shoulders and back, and he knows Hoseok is looking at the wet, glistening trail it leaves when the other boy’s tongue darts over his lips. Reading Hoseok is like reading a book.

“The movies,” Kihyun repeats, raising his eyebrow. He finds one of Hoseok’s sweaters, one with holes for your thumbs from wear and tear and rips down the sides for fashion, and slips it over his head. It hangs off one shoulder unevenly.

“Yeah, you know,” Hoseok begins, strutting over slowly and biting his teeth into his lips, a slow and satisfied grin spreading over his face. He’s in a hoodie and jeans and Kihyun thinks he’s never looked better. “The movies. There’s this big screen in a room and people watch a story on it. Sometimes people go in pairs. When that happens it’s usually called a date.”

Kihyun raises his other eyebrow. “Are we dating?”

Hoseok hums and shrugs. “Whatever you want to call it,” he says, which isn’t really an answer. 

Kihyun can’t tell if he’s disappointed or not, but a raw feeling opens up inside of him at the thought of Hoseok sleeping with someone else.  After a moment, he says, “Okay. Let’s go.”

.

Kihyun is sixteen and Changkyun steals his father’s car almost every weekend, takes it for a ride to the city where they go clubbing anywhere that will let them in. Kihyun wears eyeliner and thin layers and rings on his fingers. Licks his lips and smiles for a free drink. Opens his mouth for someone to put a tab on his tongue. Swallows. The music washes over him, washes him out. 

In the clubs, his scars glitter under strobe lights, and he doesn’t have to feel anything.

“Hey,” someone is screaming into his ear. “You’re really pretty!”

He doesn’t care. There are rings around the lights in his vision; everything is swimming. He is reminded of the ocean, that feeling of floating in the saltwater, of being light as air, of being nothing. He smiles and sways.

“Hey!” the same person yells, and this time he’s grabbing Kihyun’s shoulder, spinning him around. Kihyun whirls, caught off guard, his expression slack as he takes in the tall figure before him. The guy says, “What are you offering?”

Kihyun doesn’t answer, and the guy’s grin grows lecherous. He suddenly feels like his skin is crawling with ants.

“Nothing.” Changkyun appears beside him, a small but certain presence. “Get lost.”

The stranger scoffs and takes Kihyun’s wrist. He’s much larger than the both of them, a full grown man. Kihyun digs in his heels but when the man pulls sharply it feels like he’s going to lose his shoulder, and he steps quickly to catch up. “Let go,” Kihyun pleads.

“I just want to dance with you,” the man says, leading them into a corner. He throws Kihyun into it, against the wall.

Kihyun grits his teeth as the other man closes in on him, presses a thigh between his legs, his face turned away as he flushes. “I’m sixteen,” Kihyun blurts, his forehead cold with sweat, his heart pounding in his throat. He turns to face the other man as the walls close in around him, and he sees his mother’s face, her wide, unseeing eyes. The man steps back and drops his wrist like it caught fire, his face twisted in disbelief. “I’m sixteen,” Kihyun repeats.

“Liar,” he spits. He’s huge and lumbering toward Kihyun again, and Kihyun is frozen and numb and the corner is small. He puts one hand on Kihyun’s shoulder before he’s doubling over and cursing, hand pressed against his own side. Even in the darkness of the club, it’s easy to see the dark stain spreading over the cracks of his fingers. 

Someone grabs Kihyun’s hand and makes him run. The hand is small and familiar. He follows, dodging bodies and lights. The club disappears behind them. By the time they make it outside, they are laughing, and Changkyun is pulling him along saying, “No we can’t stop, we can’t stop, holy shit,” in between the bouts of hysterical laughter.

They are two blocks away when they slow down, when Changkyun’s hand in his starts to feel different, less like an anchor and more like an opportunity. They hide away into an alley between a convenience store and a deli, and Changkyun says, “Are you okay?”

“Did you  _ stab _ him?” Kihyun asks. Changkyun’s hands are at Kihyun’s elbows, pressing him against the brick wall of the alley, but he doesn’t feel cornered. 

The other boy says, “He was huge. I wasn’t just going to try my luck with my fists.”

“What did you even use?”

Changkyun lets go of one elbow and reaches into his pocket to take out a small fruit-paring knife, the kind that bartenders use to create the lemon-peel decorations for fancy cocktails. “Took it from the bar,” Changkyun explains. “Just sliced him.”

There’s still blood on it. Kihyun pries it from Changkyun’s fingers -- they are stiff like they’ve formed around it, and his eyes are wide and scared. And then he throws it into the dumpster in the alley.

“Let’s get totally wrecked tonight,” Kihyun says, heart still jackhammering in his throat. He needs to breathe. He misses the feeling of the ocean, that nothingness. Craves it. He digs into his pocket and brings out two pills, and Changkyun meets his gaze over them, his eyes dark. Just dark. “On three,” Kihyun says.

One.

Two.

Three.

Hyungwon and Minhyuk find them the next morning asleep in the backseat of the Audi. They drive back together, wiping the sleep and crust from their eyes. They get a week of detention for their troubles.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *the dating violence tag comes into play in this chapter

_I've done this before_  
_Not like this, not like this_  
befour, zayn

.

The movie is okay. It's a contemporary love story and Kihyun loses interest halfway through. When he tries to turn Hoseok's face towards his with his fingers to kiss him, Hoseok resists, eyes glued to the screen.

“You're missing the good part,” Hoseok whispers out of the corner of his mouth. The kiss is chaste and quick. Kihyun frowns and pulls again, and when that doesn't work, he leans heavily against Hoseok's shoulder, arms crossed tightly over his middle.

“It's not real,” Kihyun says, watching the couple on the screen hold hands and bat their eyelashes at each other. “Love doesn't look like that.”

“Shush back there,” a patron hisses at them.

“You shush,” Kihyun says at regular volume, and it seems to echo in the cavernous space. “Mind your own business.”

A few grumbles follow, but it doesn't escalate. Disappointment drags Kihyun's shoulders down, and Hoseok seems to sense this, rubbing his arm affectionately as Kihyun sits back, sulking. It makes Kihyun's skin itch, the way Hoseok is touching him, but he tries to wait it out. The affection is something Hoseok needs more than Kihyun.

“You're trouble, you know that?” Hoseok whispers into his ear, the smile in his voice. Kihyun shivers and manages to kiss him again - a slow, lingering kiss as he pulls Hoseok's bottom lip between his teeth. When they break apart, Hoseok's cheeks are a wonderful rosy pink.

“Shh,” Kihyun admonishes. “You're missing the whole thing.”

.

Kihyun is seventeen and Changkyun is his first in a lot of things. His first relationship that lasts over two months, his first heartbreak, his first time breaking up and then getting back together with someone.

Changkyun thrills him. His dark, nothing eyes. His attitude against the world and the way he snaps and lashes out because of it. If Kihyun is a knife then Changkyun is the guillotine -- fatal. They build upon each other, one mistake after another, only they don’t feel like mistakes because Changkyun is there with him. When they kiss it’s like the world is on fire, the flames licking at Kihyun’s sides, searing him and burning him. When they fight and collide, Kihyun feels alive.

“You’ve got to let him go,” Hyungwon says, dabbing an alcohol-soaked cotton ball against a shallow cut on Kihyun’s forehead. It stings like crazy, and Kihyun hisses.

“He loves me,” Kihyun says, and Hyungwon shakes his head.

He points to the cut at his forehead, to the bruise over Kihyun’s cheek. The cotton ball is wet and slightly pink, and Kihyun feels jagged and unfinished, like a broken mirror. “That’s not love,” Hyungwon says.

Kihyun presses his lips together as Hyungwon inspects the cut and puts tape over it. “You don’t know anything,” he tells his friend, missing how Hyungwon frowns, missing the hurt in his eyes. “We’re good together.”

“One day you’re going to push each other too far,” Hyungwon says. “What then?”

Kihyun doesn’t say anything, because the truth is, he doesn’t care. When Hyungwon is done patching him up he thanks his friend and leaves. He walks around campus once, but night is quickly falling and he doesn’t have a jacket with him. By the time he reaches Changkyun’s dorm, his arms are covered in tiny bumps and he’s shivering.

“Ki,” Changkyun says, answering Kihyun’s shaky knocking. “I’m so sorry.”

Changkyun’s lip is split. They’d fought over something stupid, something Kihyun said about Changkyun’s father, who hates Kihyun, who cornered him earlier today in the hall between classes and told him to stay the fuck away from his son, who told Kihyun he was a bad influence, a disaster. Kihyun had lifted his chin at him and told him Changkyun didn't need Kihyun to influence him anything. Had they not been in public, Professor Lim might have hit him. Kihyun could see him clenching his fist out of the corner of his eye.

Kihyun says, “I guess I asked for it,” crossing his arms over his chest and holding himself tightly. His scars prickle.

“Still,” Changkyun says. He lets Kihyun in and closes the door behind him. They sit on Changkyun’s bed, carefully not touching. Changkyun’s room is a mess -- dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, his school books in stacks or scattered haphazardly throughout, and there's evidence of their fights in the walls, dents here and there, spots of blood. Changkyun’s desk light is on, throwing a golden pool of light around one corner of the room, warm and soft and still. Kihyun's jagged edges turn inward, slowly, almost imperceptibly, until suddenly a wave of something hot and fierce and unbearable crashes over him, escaping him in a whimper. Changkyun says, “Hey. I'm sorry, Ki,” and touches his shoulder.

The touch ignites Kihyun from the inside out. He presses against it and then he's pushing Changkyun to the bed, kissing Changkyun's split lip and tasting blood. Changkyun gasps underneath him, goes willingly, knees parting so Kihyun can slot himself between his legs.

“Does it hurt?” Kihyun asks with an exhale, and Changkyun nods, grinning.

Changkyun presses his fingers against the bruise on Kihyun's cheek, the one he put there with his fist, and says, “This means you're mine.”

.

Hoseok brings him to dinner at a casual hole-in-the-wall. The table is cramped, and the lighting is low, and despite how close they are to each other Kihyun still has to lean across the table to hear Hoseok when he speaks. His blonde hair catches the little light there is in the restaurant, and it seems to glow.

“Do you like it?” Hoseok asks, all warm smiles and eagerness in his eyes.

Kihyun wrinkles his nose and buries his chin a little deeper into his scarf that he still hasn't taken off. It's a fluffy grey cloud around his neck, and it smells a little bit like Hoseok. “No,” Kihyun says, “it's so pretentious.”

“This coming from you,” Hoseok says with a laugh. They order small plates to share, and the plates start coming to the table, one by one. Kihyun is drinking wine, and Hoseok is drinking water. “I've figured it out, you know?” Hoseok adds.

“Figured what out?”

“You,” Hoseok says, his eyes dancing in the soft light of the candle on the table between them. Kihyun's heart jumps alarmingly in his chest, but Hoseok, heedless, continues. “You think you're made of stone, but I know you're not. I've seen you smile. A real smile. You _feel_ things.”

“The only thing I feel right now is the urge to shove this meatball down your throat,” Kihyun says flatly. He plays with his silverware, eating in minuscule bites, uncomfortable. He doesn't know how to do this -- gazing at each other over small tables, holding hands in public, watching movies and cuddling. Sometimes Kihyun thinks he was wired different, or that something went wrong in the creation of him. Hoseok's genuineness makes him anxious, his openness makes him want to run.

And yet, he is and remains drawn to him, like a moth to fire.

“That's anger,” Hoseok supplies helpfully. “Or maybe denial. See? _Feelings_. We can talk, you know. About stuff. I'm a good listener.”

“I don't want to talk,” Kihyun says stiffly, and Hoseok keeps smiling and lets the subject fall. His ankle touches Kihyun's under the table in reassurance, and Kihyun recoils. The smile drops from Hoseok's face, though it returns shakily, and with some effort. Kihyun's stomach tightens.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Hoseok asks. They have only received a portion of the food they've ordered so far, and he looks down at it, already resigned to leaving it.

Kihyun swallows the lump in his throat. He nods.

Hoseok says, “It's okay, we can make ramyun at my place. I'd rather have ramyun, anyway.”

Kihyun knows that's a lie, but he doesn't call Hoseok out on it.

.

Kihyun is seventeen and home for the winter holidays. The house is an empty shell, and his mother is even emptier. For meals, they eat in the kitchen that looks like it came straight from the pages of a magazine. She greets him with a pinch against his hip, and now Kihyun knows why the action is so familiar; it's how she'd greet his father as well, when he was alive.

“Every time I look at you,” she says as she is spooning a dainty bite of rice into her mouth, as she speaks to Kihyun as if through a veil, “I just see him. And who are you, then?”

“No one,” Kihyun says.

“What was that?”

Kihyun shakes his head, the little crescent scars against his wrists catching the light. “Nothing.”

.

They never make the ramyun. As soon as they arrive at Hoseok's, Kihyun pushes him toward the couch and straddles him, and Hoseok laughs and goes with it, and when their lips meet their teeth knock against each other audibly.

“What's this?” Hoseok breathes against his cheek.

“Shut up,” Kihyun says, “and fuck me.”

Hoseok lays him down on the couch, spreads him out and takes his time. Teases him until Kihyun is spitting angry. He wanted it fast, and hard, and he's not getting any of that. And there's nothing to distract him from this feeling bubbling up inside of his chest whenever Hoseok smiles at him, whenever he takes his hand and kisses his palm like he's as delicate as a flower. Nothing but the sting behind his eyes.

Kihyun can't _stand_ it.

“Hoseok,” Kihyun pleads, voice breaking. The feeling in his chest is burning now and he hates it. It feels like it's going to burn him hollow. “Don't be so gentle with me.”

Hoseok pauses and Kihyun nearly kicks him in frustration. He only speaks when he holds Kihyun's gaze in his, his eyes a deep, rich chocolate. “I want to make you feel good.”

Something inside of Kihyun snaps. His body moves without his mind, and he's pushing Hoseok away and pulling his clothes to him, throwing his shirt over his head. He's running. Out the door and out of the apartment building, and his sides hurt and his wrists hurt and he's thinking of his lonely, poor mother, who couldn't see past the bitter memory of his father, and he's thinking of Changkyun.

Changkyun's eyes and his nose and his brutal, lovely fingers. He aches.

.


	4. Chapter 4

_Look at me I’m such a basket case_  
_While I fall apart, you'll hide all my pills again_  
_And all the things I need to hear you say_ _  
You’ll watch as all my thoughts get right back on the train_

cellophane, sia

.

Kihyun is eighteen and the hospital walls are stark white, glaring. He sits outside of the room where Changkyun lies on a hospital bed. He’s numb. Can’t get the image of Changkyun’s eyes rolling back into his head and Changkyun collapsing to the floor out of his mind. It plays on a loop, over and over again. What had gone wrong? The first pill? Or the third? Had Changkyun taken something else?

His high is leaving him in waves, and it makes him feel bone-dry and hollow, like a husk. The hospital is a murmur of noise around him, all sounds he can’t decipher. It’s four o’clock in the morning.

He cradles his head in his hands. It’s throbbing. Everything is throbbing, all his little pain points, inflamed. He thinks he could die and yet he’s so far removed from it all, and he imagines himself looking down at his own hunched shell of a body. He should be in the bed and not Changkyun. Not his bright Changkyun.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, curled up in his hoodie and jeans, but it feels that in the next moment a force is clawing at his shoulders, shoving him up out of the seat and against the wall. Kihyun goes like a ragdoll, his eyes unfocused, the image of Changkyun’s father solidifying in front of him.

His face is pale, and his eyes are red. And he’s angry.

“I knew it,” Professor Lim says, punctuating each word with a shake, rattling Kihyun against the wall. “I knew it would be your fault.”

Kihyun doesn’t say anything, because he’s right. The back of his head bangs against the wall, making tiny star fields prickle in his vision. He sees Changkyun on the floor of his room, too still, unresponsive. His throat closes up as Professor Lim says, “If you’ve caused him irreparable harm…”

The older man lets the threat hang in the air, his fingers digging into the meat of Kihyun’s upper arms. He’ll have bruises there, five little dots around his arms like fairy rings. He opens his mouth and forces the words past the lump in his throat: “I’m sorry.”

The flare of pain at Kihyun’s cheek is immediate, red-hot and stinging. His eyes water as his head is thrown to the side, Professor Lim’s hand still raised. Slowly, Kihyun touches his hand to his own cheek. It’s warm.

“When he wakes up,” Professor Lim says, grim and stony, “I’m sending him away. He’ll finish school in America with his mother. And you’ll never speak or see him again.”

“He’ll never forgive you,” Kihyun says, though he doesn’t know if it’s the truth. He wants it to be. There’s a pressure in his chest he can’t recognize or process, but it feels like it’s suffocating him.

“I’m his father,” Professor Lim says. “He’ll understand eventually.” He lets Kihyun go, and without the older man's hands holding him against the wall, Kihyun’s knees can’t bear his own weight. He slides down the wall to the floor, and Changkyun’s father steps around him, the disgust clear on his face, and into the room that holds his son.

Minhyuk and Hyungwon pick him up from the hospital. It’s Hyungwon, still in his pajamas, who finds him in a tight ball on the floor, who shakes him gently out of his void-like state. Who says, “C’mon, Kihyun. Let’s go back and get you cleaned up.”

They herd him between them, like a lost lamb, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder, hold him down by his arms so he doesn't float away like a balloon. “I'm a destroyer," Kihyun says. "I ruin things.”

“I don’t think that’s it, Kihyun,” Minhyuk says.

Changkyun wakes up after two days in the hospital, groggy and weakened but otherwise fine. Professor Lim does not press charges, and Changkyun does not call or text Kihyun; all of Kihyun's texts go unanswered, his calls straight to voicemail. Changkyun's room, when Kihyun goes by it, is empty, has been for days.

Kihyun graduates that year by the skin of his teeth. Changkyun is not in the audience, but Kihyun's mother is, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue so that her eyeliner doesn't run, smiling at him while he walks across the stage.

“Baby,” she says, “you graduated after all.” Brushes his hair back with sharp nails, her smile full of razors for teeth.

.

“Bar’s closing.”

Kihyun looks up from the glass he's been tipping from finger to finger on the bar, and the room seems to swim. How many drinks has he had? Too many to count on one hand but no so many that he couldn't pretend to walk a straight line. The bartender stands in front of him, swaying, or maybe that's Kihyun swaying in his seat.

“Do you wanna close your tab?”

Kihyun waves his hand around in a gesture he hopes can mean for the bartender to do what he must. A moment later, the receipt and his credit card slide in front of him on the bar.

He remembers now the look of surprise on Hoseok's face when he'd left, and it guts him. The soft circle of his lips and the sadness in his eyes. He'd reached for Kihyun but Kihyun was already gone. He'd called for Kihyun but Kihyun was already running. Kihyun had taken the train a few stations and disembarked somewhere familiar, though he can’t place it in his mind now. Kihyun's phone buzzes on the bar, loud and rattling, reminding of his missed texts and calls. All Hoseok, Hoseok, Hoseok.

That burning behind his eyes comes back, and Kihyun blinks it furiously away.

“Hey,” the bartender says. “Do you have anyone coming to pick you up?”

Kihyun shakes his head. The bartender frowns at him, but doesn't comment. His arms are bare and Kihyun watches the muscles in them flex and bulge as he cleans the bar’s surface.

“What's your name?” Kihyun asks. His voice feels like sand in his throat.

“Hyunwoo,” he says. “What about you?”

“Kihyun.”

Hyunwoo nods and goes back to cleaning the bar as the lights slowly come on to full strength and the remaining patrons filter out of the front door. The walls are sleek and black with gold trimmings, and mirrors hang artfully throughout the space. Kihyun absently wonders if Hoseok would like it here, or if he'd think it pretentious. If Hoseok would ever speak to him again at all.

“Hyunwoo,” Kihyun says, his fingers playing along the rim of the glass in front of him as he plasters a sly smile onto his face, “do you live around here?”

Hyunwoo stops cleaning the bar. He glances up at Kihyun and stares for a long moment, into Kihyun's eyes. Kihyun stares back, wondering if Hyunwoo can see anything behind them.

The other man says with a tiny curl to his lips, “Actually, I live right upstairs.”

.

Hyunwoo is big. He uses his fingers first and that is already almost too much, and Kihyun can do nothing but arch his back and moan. Can do nothing but hold on. That raw ripped-open feeling stays dormant in his chest but he knows it's there, knows it's just waiting to surface again, but for now at least, he can feel nothing but Hyunwoo inside of him and above him. Hyunwoo’s massive hands gripping his, Hyunwoo’s back like the unfathomable distance of the sea.

His inner thighs burn with the stretch, after, when Hyunwoo slips out of him and kisses him once on the lips, soft. Gentle.

Kihyun waits for him to fall asleep before he rises to leave, holding himself by the wall for support because his knees are shaking. Everything is shaking.

By the door there's a hoodie hanging on a hook. He takes it and slips it on over his head, and the bottom hem falls nearly to his knees.

It isn't until he makes it outside on the pavement, where it's still in between night and morning, the light grey and starting to creep into every crevice, that he doubles over and vomits onto the concrete.

.

Hyungwon answers on the third ring, and Kihyun stops biting at his own fingers. “It’s like six in the morning,” is the mumbled greeting. Kihyun can imagine Hyungwon’s expression, his half-closed eyes and perfect pout. He focuses on that image instead of the way everything is buzzing like a fly he can’t swat away from circling around his head.

“Do you remember Changkyun?” Kihyun asks Hyungwon, knowing there’s a note desperation in his voice. A train stops at the station, and people get on and off. Kihyun sits in one of the seats against the wall of the station, watching the traffic and feeling like everyone is looking at him as they walk by.

“Of course I remember Changkyun, Kihyun,” Hyungwon says. His voice becomes sharper. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Hm,” Kihyun says. “I don’t know. I’m in a train station. I think I did something pretty shitty. Like, really shitty. Do you think Changkyun’s okay?” He starts biting at his fingers again. Draws his knees up to his chest. He’s small enough that he still fits in the seat like this, a little buzzing ball of unwanted energy.

“Changkyun’s in America. Boston, I think. Kihyun, I’m sure he’s fine. What are you doing in a train station?”

“I just wanted to make sure,” Kihyun says. “The last time I saw Changkyun he was in the hospital.”

He hears rustling on the other end of the line. Then Minhyuk’s voice: _who’s calling this fucking early in the morning?_

Hyungwon must cover the receiver at that point, because the sound is muted for a moment, before Hyungwon returns and says, “Kihyun, what station are you at?”

He looks around for a sign. “Sinchon,” he says. It’s cold. Hyunwoo’s hoodie is no longer enough to stave off the frigid air biting at his fingers and toes.

Hyungwon sighs into the phone. He says something to Minhyuk that Kihyun can’t catch, and Minhyuk says something back. They go back and forth for almost a minute, Kihyun’s breath turning white in front of him in small puffs as he tries to make out their conversation.

Finally, it’s Minhyuk who says, “Kihyun, listen,” and the voice he’s using makes Kihyun want to sit up straight with his hands in his lap, but he can’t move because he realizes he’s still shaking, tiny tremors all over. “My friend Jooheon lives around there. Hyungwon’s on the phone with him now. Jooheon’s gonna come find you and take you back to your apartment.”

“He doesn’t know where I live,” Kihyun argues.

“You’re going to have to tell him,” Minhyuk says back, steady and calm.

“I don’t know,” Kihyun whispers. “I’m really tired.”

Minhyuk seems to hesitate before answering. “Yeah. Sounds like you’ve been out all night, Kihyun. But it’s going to be okay.”

.

Jooheon’s name is familiar, but they must have only met once or twice before. Minutes or hours later, a boy finds Kihyun with the hood of Hyunwoo’s hoodie up, and taps him on the shoulder. Kihyun blinks at him, registers his face, his shock of red hair.

“Kihyun-hyung?”

Kihyun nods.

Jooheon says, “I brought you a jacket. Minhyuk mentioned -- he said -- never mind.” Jooheon’s cheeks flush, and he thrusts a coat in Kihyun’s direction. It’s a bomber-style quilted jacket, tiny feathers escaping a few seams, but it’s warm. Kihyun puts it on and shivers harder, the warmth at odds with him.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Mind if I sit?”

Kihyun nods again. The other boy takes the seat next to him, rubbing his hands together vigorously, jiggling his knee. He’s kinetic, Kihyun thinks.

“Long night?” Jooheon asks. “How long you been out?”

Kihyun shrugs.

“Sometimes when I go on a bender I get kind of -- weird, too. I guess.”

Kihyun flinches like Jooheon had thrown a stone at him. Jooheon must notice, because he backtracks quickly, holding up his hands. “I just meant that -- Minhyuk and Hyungwon seem to really care about you.”

There it is, that raw ache in his chest again. Opening up like a chasm. How can he be both empty inside and so full of emotion? He imagines it spilling out of him like someone is dissecting him, all black and sharp, glinting in the sun. Kihyun shudders and feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes, blinks them back. Takes a deep breath.

The moment passes.

A train pulls into the station, and Jooheon puts his hand at Kihyun’s shoulder. “Should we get on?”

They get on. This early in the morning on the weekend, there are few riders on the train, and Kihyun sits while Jooheon stands, his body curved over Kihyun's like a shield. He thinks of Hoseok and how he’d wrap himself around Kihyun after sex, keeping him there, kissing his temple and cheeks and anything else he could reach while Kihyun tried to squirm away.

_Hoseok._

He shouldn’t have left him like that. What would Hoseok be thinking now?

They pass a few stations before Kihyun stands suddenly when they reach City Hall. “This is me,” Kihyun says, and starts to make his way to the doors.

Jooheon, surprised, follows. “Minhyuk said you were a little further out, though.”

“Well,” Kihyun snaps, “he was wrong.”

Jooheon follows him out of the train car and out of the station, follows him the few blocks it takes for Kihyun to reach a familiar apartment building. Kihyun stands at the doors, struggling to remember the code to unlock them.

“This is you?”

“Yes,” Kihyun lies. “So you can go now.” Jooheon frowns, and Kihyun only feels slight remorse at his quick dismissal of Minhyuk’s friend. “I didn’t mean it like that," he amends, still remembering his social graces despite everything. "Thank you for making sure I got home.”

He remembers the code then and punches it in, and the keypad turns green and the lock clicks open. When he turns back to look at Jooheon, he’s trying to stretch a smile across his face. Jooheon is still frowning, but he seems convinced.

“Okay, well,” Jooheon says, hedging a bit. “I’ll let Minhyuk-hyung know you’re home safe.”

“Thank you again,” Kihyun says, returning Jooheon's jacket to him and pushing his way inside the building. He can feel Jooheon lingering, but carefully doesn’t look back. His heart is pounding in his chest as he takes the stairs up two flights to Hoseok’s apartment.

.

Hoseok isn’t home, but he’d given Kihyun an extra keycard just last week. Kihyun uses it, steps into the empty apartment that smells like ramyun and Hoseok and lemons. He takes a shower and stands under the hot spray of water for a long time, wondering if he could cleanse himself completely and start over, stripped. In the bathroom mirror, he sees the bruises along the crests of his hips already forming, left by Hyunwoo’s hands, and dresses quickly in an old shirt of Hoseok’s and a pair of sweatpants he finds in the dresser so he doesn’t have to look at them.

Hyunwoo’s hoodie goes in the corner of the couch in a crumpled up ball, and Kihyun sits in the very middle of the couch, lost and tired, his hair still wet, waiting for Hoseok to come home.

.

Hoseok stumbles back in about an hour later, and Kihyun jerks awake at the sound of the door slamming shut, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He hadn’t dreamed, he’d simply lost consciousness as he waited. Hoseok is wearing skin-tight black jeans and a shirt that dips low at his chest and his hair is a glorious, blonde coif that shouldn’t still have its shape after so many hours of what was obviously partying. He’s wearing a leather jacket and he smells like cigarettes and alcohol and trips over the step marking the line between the entryway and the living room as he’s taking off his boots.

“Kihyun,” Hoseok says. “What the fuck.”

Kihyun’s lower lips trembles. He clenches his jaw but his eyes still burn. He hugs his knees to his chest and waits for the moment to pass, but it doesn’t. It lingers inside of him and all around him, and suddenly it feels like he can’t breathe. “Hoseok,” he says in a wavering voice. “Hoseok, I fucked up.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. He leaves the leather jacket in a heap on the floor and strides over to Kihyun and stands in front of him and takes Kihyun’s face between his cold hands. Kihyun’s eyelids flutter shut at the contact, and wet tears seep out and roll down over his cheeks. Hoseok brushes them away with gentle thumbs. “What happened?”

“I fucked up,” Kihyun repeats. His hands are clutching at Hoseok’s shirt now. “I did something really shitty.”

“Yeah,” Hoseok says, “you ran out on me.” But there’s no bite to his words, not when he’s stroking his thumb over Kihyun’s cheek like this, not when he’s settling in on the couch too, cradling Kihyun against his chest and holding him there.

“No,” Kihyun says. He feels split open. “I slept with someone.”

Hoseok stiffens underneath him. He moves Kihyun from his chest, holding him by his shoulders so he can face him. Kihyun expects Hoseok to scream at him. Maybe he’ll hit him, strike him with his hand at his cheek. Throttle him and yell.

Instead, Hoseok asks, “ _Did they hurt you?"_

And Kihyun shakes apart. He realizes now how delicately he’d been held together in the first place, all his jagged edges misshapen. Parts that didn’t belong in the same puzzle. He splinters and feels hurt, and shame, and guilt, and rage. But most of all he feels sadness. That was the raw ache he couldn’t place, and now it eats him whole.

“Oh, Kihyun,” Hoseok is saying, holding him again, his hand rubbing warm circles against Kihyun’s back as Kihyun grasps at him like a lifeline.

“Why don’t you hate me?" Kihyun wants to scream, though it comes out as a broken sob. "Aren’t you mad?”

“We can talk about that later, Ki,” Hoseok says, still rubbing Kihyun’s back, still holding him close. It’s horrible and wonderful, and Kihyun cries to the point of hyperventilation, his breaths shaky and uneven, his chest rattling with each breath. Cries into Hoseok’s chest until there’s nothing left inside of him, and only then does he finally drift off again, Hoseok’s arms warm around his middle.

.


	5. Chapter 5

_Nothing compares to your love_

your love, yuna

 .

Kihyun wakes up feeling like someone is trying to drill a hole through his skull and into his brain. His tongue feels swollen and dry, like cotton, and when he swallows it feels like how he imagines ingesting a fistful of nails might feel. He whimpers, curls into the warmth at his side, and breathes out slowly when that warmth curls back, forms into an arm around his waist. Hoseok's legs are tangled with his under a soft throw blanket he must have dragged over them both while Kihyun was sleeping. 

He feels Hoseok place a feather soft kiss on his forehead, feels Hoseok dragging a finger up and down his spine, repetitive and soothing. “Morning,” Hoseok says, “or afternoon, I guess.”

Kihyun makes a whining noise low in his throat in response, and Hoseok chuckles, the sound coming from deep within his chest.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Kihyun manages to say, his head pounding with the words.

“Want some water?”

He does, but Hoseok getting up to fetch some water means Hoseok leaving the couch and leaving him. It means Hoseok taking all the warmth with him when he goes. It means Kihyun alone on the couch with all his thoughts swirling around in his head, so he whimpers again and holds onto the front of Hoseok's shirt, clamps tight like a vice.

“Okay,” Hoseok whispers into Kihyun's hair. “Water can wait.” His arms wind tighter around Kihyun's waist, and he fits himself against Kihyun snugly, chest to chest. “You have like 30 missed calls from Hyungwon and Minhyuk, by the way. I took your phone out of your pocket. Thought it was something else digging into my hip at first.”

Kihyun can sense the smirk at Hoseok's lips, and swats him weakly on his chest. Hoseok pulls him even closer in response, until Kihyun's nose is buried in his chest, and he breathes him in, surrounded by his familiar scent.

It triggers something in Kihyun, like a dam breaking open, flood waters surging. He's crying again, and he hates it.

“I texted Hyungwon that you're with me,” Hoseok says over his tiny sniffles, still rubbing his back. “They know you're okay.”

The front of Hoseok's shirt is wet. Kihyun feels like a towel wrung out. Exhausted and spent. The raw ache inside of him is a black hole and Kihyun isn't sure where it starts or where it ends, only that it feels like it has both always been part of him and is consuming him. A parasite.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbles against Hoseok's chest.

Hoseok says, “It's okay,” tracing his fingers up and down Kihyun's back again, grounding him against him. “You're okay.”

Kihyun hiccups as a fresh wave of tears escapes him and Hoseok wraps him up tighter, in a warm cocoon. “I'm so sad, Hoseok,” he says miserably. “When did that happen?”

Hoseok pulls the blanket over his head, blocking out the light of the afternoon. Underneath, it's quiet, and Kihyun can hear Hoseok's heart beating in his chest, a steady and slow reminder of who is here with him. “It's probably been building, Ki,” Hoseok says. “For a long time.”

“I hate it,” Kihyun says. “It _hurts_.”

Hoseok says, “When I was fifteen, my mom split from my dad. She'd finally had enough. I didn't forgive her for waiting for so long for a good five years. You can bet I had a good cry about that, when I finally came around.”

“I’m sorry,” Kihyun says again, and Hoseok shushes him. Kihyun worms his head out of the blanket cocoon, finding himself gazing into Hoseok’s eyes. Feeling brave, Kihyun says, “I think the last time I cried was when my dad died.”

“Weren’t you, like, ten?” Hoseok’s eyes are still soft. Everything about him is soft, and wonderful, and Kihyun still aches, but in a different way.

“Yes,” Kihyun whispers.

Hoseok says, “Well, then you’re way overdue for one anyway.”

They talk. Kihyun tells Hoseok things about his mother he’s never told anyone before, not Hyungwon or Minhyuk or his counselors at school. Hoseok tells him things about his father that make Kihyun cringe and want to check Hoseok all over for ghosts of bruises and breaks, though the only one that has lasted is the silver scar by his ribs. It isn’t until Hoseok is wiping Kihyun’s face with the neck of his t-shirt that Kihyun realizes he’s been silently crying throughout, unable to stop himself, like a leak has sprung within him, like he's broken.

Maybe something _has_ broken. Kihyun looks at Hoseok and feels things he’s never felt before with anyone else, a feeling so deep and foundational and absent from his life that he couldn’t possibly name it, but it makes him want to float and sing and hold Hoseok’s hand and count all the lines in his skin.

Before they know it, the light has changed. The afternoon has passed them, and early evening’s purple-pink glow filters in through Hoseok’s windows. Hoseok’s stomach also gives a mighty, loud grumble, and he laughs.

“That’s my cue to convince you to stay so we can order in food,” Hoseok says.

Kihyun sighs and nods, stiffening when Hoseok moves to leave the couch, but relaxing when Hoseok reminds him, “I’m just getting my phone. You might want to get in touch with Hyungwon and Minhyuk, right?”

He does. He also realizes he needs to piss like a racehorse. On the way back from the bathroom, he swings by the kitchen for a glass of water, also. It’s nice to walk around, stretching his legs after so long cuddled up against Hoseok on the couch. He calls Hyungwon, sitting in one corner of the couch, listening to the phone ring.

Hyungwon picks up almost immediately, only once the voice comes through, Kihyun realizes it’s Minhyuk. 

“Yoo. Ki.Hyun,” Minhyuk yells. “Do not ever pull this shit again. Poor Jooheon felt _so_ bad after he realized you hadn’t actually gone home. And us! Me and Hyungwon. Showing up at your place only to find you _not there_. We started calling _hospitals_.” 

Kihyun’s breath shakes against the microphone. “I’m sorry,” he says, sounding wet and stuffy to his own ears. “I’m really sorry, guys.”

Minhyuk sighs and his tone shifts, quieter and calmer and utterly sincere. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. We were so relieved when Hoseok texted us. Really. Are you okay?”

“Better,” Kihyun says. "You really started calling hospitals?"

"We didn't know what had happened to you, Kihyun," Minhyuk says. "We thought -- I don't know what we thought."

"I'm sorry," Kihyun says again. It seems it's all he can say. 

“Are you _crying_?”

“No,” Kihyun says. Even though he is. _Again_. Minhyuk doesn’t comment on the lie.

“I know we party pretty hard, and get into some, um, serious shit. But Kihyun, you know if it’s ever too much, you can tell us, too. We’re your friends, too.”

Kihyun’s nose is dripping. Hoseok appears like an angel with a box of tissues, and Kihyun takes a few, wiping at his face. “I know,” he says. “I know, I just needed -- I just needed to see Hoseok.”

Minhyuk laughs lightly. “Yeah, I get that. Do you need me to give him the ‘if you ever hurt him’ speech? Because I will. With many embellishments.”

“No,” Kihyun says, smiling now. “But maybe Hyungwon can do it.”

Minhyuk bawks into the phone, and Kihyun laughs some more. When they hang up, he feels lighter, and like the black hole inside of him might actually be manageable. Maybe it can be tamed. Which is when he sees Hyunwoo’s hoodie crumpled up in the other corner of the couch.

“I just ordered Chinese,” Hoseok says, coming to sit by him. “Greasy and fast. It’ll really hit the spot -- oh.” He’s caught sight of Kihyun staring at the hoodie. “Ki, we don’t have to--”

“No,” Kihyun says. “We do have to. I -- did that -- and it was kind of. Really fucked up.” He can still remember how he'd urged Hyunwoo to hold him down, to leave those bruises. He blinks the images away.

“There’s worse,” Hoseok says to make light of things, but Kihyun shakes his head and pushes Hoseok away when he tries to hold him. He needs there to be no distractions. Hoseok frowns.

“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen,” Kihyun says. “I’ve spent -- a lot of of my life pretending things didn’t happen. But I also--” the feeling bubbles up in his chest again, and it makes his breath catch as a lump forms in his throat “--really like you? Like a lot. And I need to know if I ruined it like I ruin everything. _Like I ruin everything._ ”

Hoseok comes forward with more tissues, dabbing gently under Kihyun’s eyes. Kihyun can’t help but lean into him, and they come together on the couch, Hoseok’s arms around Kihyun’s middle and Kihyun’s legs over Hoseok’s lap. Kihyun’s heart thumping hard in his chest, waiting for Hoseok to respond.

Hoseok says, “I am pretty upset you slept with someone else instead of staying with me and telling me what was wrong. If we were dating, I’d be even more upset,” and Kihyun cries harder, feeling his chest cave in.

But then Hoseok says, “Remember when you asked if we were dating, though? And I said we could call it whatever you wanted to call it?”

Kihyun nods. It was when they’d gone to the movies a couple weeks ago.

“Well,” Hoseok says, “that was me being a total chicken. I should have just asked you out then. Like I’m going to ask you out, now. Hopefully you’ll say yes. Like, I’ll be so gutted if you don’t say yes. Or _you_ could ask me out. I’m fine either way.”

“Why on earth would you still want to date me?”

“Because every time you let me in more, I fall more in love,” Hoseok says.

Kihyun dies a little, but in embarrassment. It’s an odd feeling, and not completely horrible. And it's mixed with a happiness he can't contain that spreads from that cavity in his chest right to his cheeks. He can't help but smile. “You must enjoy suffering.”

“Ki,” Hoseok says, “you have no idea.”

.

Dating, Kihyun thinks, is strange. He and Hoseok go out to dinners, and for long walks in the park, and to see movies, and to just hang out with each other. Hoseok always holds the door for him. Kihyun finds that he prefers to cook rather than eat out. He gets to know Hoseok on a level he never thought he’d be comfortable with -- knows Hoseok’s morning routines and all the signs that point to Hoseok feeling stressed about something, knows when Hoseok is about to lose his temper sometimes before Hoseok even realizes.

It’s a lot of power over someone, Kihyun thinks as he’s packing a lunch for them to take with them to the park. Power and trust. Because Hoseok has the same over him.

The weather has warmed up nicely and they’re meeting Hyungwon and Minhyuk there for a day of light drinking and possibly napping in the park when they get tired of people watching (read: making fun of the people they see) or attempting to play frisbee. Hyungwon still hosts parties every other weekend, nearly, but Kihyun frequents them less and less. If he does go, Hoseok is usually at his side.

It’s not always perfect; sometimes he has good days, sometimes he has bad. But the good days are getting better.

“Kihyun,” he hears Hoseok calling from his bedroom. He’d stayed over last night so they could leave together for the park today. “What should I wear? The shirt that shows off my arms or the shirt that shows off my chest?”

“How about neither?” Kihyun calls back, closing up the tupperware of kimbap. “I’ll just put a trash bag over your shoulders.”

He can hear Hoseok laughing. “It’s for you, anyway, Ki,” Hoseok says teasingly. “I just know how much you like to look.”

“In that case: arms.”

A few moments later he feels those arms snake around his waist to hold him close against a firm chest. “You about ready to go?” Hoseok asks, his voice close to Kihyun’s ear and his breath warm against his neck.

Kihyun turns into his embrace and kisses him, playfully pushing back. When they pull apart, Hoseok’s lips are delicious apple-red.

“I think I’m all set,” Kihyun says, smiling.

.

**Author's Note:**

> find me @andnowforyaya on twitter :)
> 
> Comments are appreciated <3


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